Friday, October 14, 2011

POLITICAL DIGEST 10/15/2011 CONSERVATIVE

Blog Removed.

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Excerpt: Nasser Abu Hameid had been given five life sentences for murdering Palestinian "collaborators" with Israel. He was released in September 1999 as part of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement signed by Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. Hameid was part of a lynch mob a year later that mutilated the corpses of two IDF reservists after they were dragged out of jail and murdered in Ramallah on Oct. 12, 2000. During the next 17 months, he also murdered a pair of Israelis near the settlement called Givat Zeev, helped plot a terrorist attack that killed a policewoman, and was responsible for a shooting and hand-grenade attack on a Tel Aviv seafood restaurant, which killed three people. In late 2002, he was sentenced to seven life terms for murdering Israelis. As Israelis across the political spectrum welcome the news that Cpl. Gilad Schalit, kidnapped by Hamas in a June 2006 cross-border raid, will soon be reunited with his family, they also confront a grim reality. More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them affiliated with Hamas and other jihadist organizations, will go free as a result. (Note to IDF: Kill terrorists, don’t capture them. If alive the group will kidnap more Israelis to get them freed. This will only increase their contempt for the Jews. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: The Occupy Wall Street protests spreading across the country are mobilizing liberal activists who have been largely sidelined in the national debate since helping to elect President Obama three years ago. But it is unclear whether this sudden burst of energy on the American left will help Obama and other Democrats. The protests are gaining steam around a set of economic grievances and a wariness of both parties’ reliance on corporate campaign money — and Democratic officials are wondering how, or whether, they can tap into a movement that seems fed up with all brands of partisan politics. (Simple solution. Just present Democrats with a list of OWS demands, such as a guaranteed minimum wage of $20 hour even if you don’t work and cancelling all debts, thus destroying banks, the credit industry and the life savings/retirement funds of those whose money is lent out, and see if Democrats will sign on, or reject the protesters. ~Bob.)

The Facts About China’s Currency, Chinese Subsidies, and American Jobs

Abstract:There is great concern in the U.S. about Chinese currency policy costing American jobs. But over two decades, there has been no evidence that a weak yuan causes high American unemployment. What American policymakers should focus on is other Chinese actions that do harm the U.S. and the entire global economy, particularly China’s market-distorting and anti-competitive subsidies. Heritage Foundation Asia economic policy expert Derek Scissors explains why the U.S. must identify and measure Chinese subsidies as the necessary first step in reducing the damage they cause. There is persistent concern in the U.S. that Chinese currency policy is costing American jobs. The main argument is that jobs are lost because China’s currency, the yuan, is weak—it is not worth enough as compared to the dollar, giving Chinese companies an unfair price advantage in international trade. There is no genuine evidence to support this claim. As shown below, over the past 20 years, U.S. unemployment has been low when the yuan is weak and high when the yuan is strong. It has been so because American, not Chinese, policies determine unemployment levels. The yuan is incidental. Congressional action to punish China for its exchange rate policy, such as that now being considered, will do nothing to create jobs in the U.S. There are Chinese actions that do harm the U.S. These same policies also harm the rest of the world. The most damaging can be grouped under the mantle of subsidies.

Excerpt: Back in February 2010, when Congress was still debating the Obamacare legislation, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) proclaimed to America that the law "will create 400,000 jobs almost immediately." But according to a new report by Heritage's James Sherk, Obamacare will have the opposite effect, pricing many unskilled workers out of full-time employment due to the law's requirement that employers offer health benefits to full-time employees. According to Sherk, the minimum cost of employing full-time workers under Obamacare amounts to an average of $27,500, more than what many unskilled employees produce. He explains in his paper, "Obamacare Will Price Less Skilled Workers Out of Full-Time Jobs" why increased costs will lead employers to shift to employing part-time workers: (Politicians get away with this BS because the public pays so little attention sand has such a short attention span. Polls show that 70% of citizens can’t name either of their US Senators. ~Bob.)

Great picture. ~Bob. Excerpt: This lucky image was captured two days ago in the Dasht-e-Margo (Desert of Death.) The Baloch tribesman is a member of the Afghan National Police and was part of an Afghan security escort to a very remote dam. I was travelling with members of the Central Asia Development Group, along with the Governor and Police Chief of Nimroz Province. For reference, the nearest Iran border is about 17 miles west from this image, and the Pakistan border is south about 60 miles. The closest US military presence to the location of this photo is at Delaram, approximately 77 miles away. They might as well have been 700 miles distant. This country is as wild as it gets. This is, after all, the Dasht-e-Margo. Our security was the goodwill of the Baloch people. They are famously independent and famously hard fighters. An ambush had been set up, almost certainly for us, during our previously scheduled trip some days ago. Due to an unexpected delay, we didn’t make it. The ambush took at least 9 enemy (2 more seem to have died in the desert) and a policeman. Part of the fighting in that ambush took place a couple of hundred meters from this photograph. The combat started here and unfolded over a period of about five hours, with a running gun battle spanning about 100km of desert. The enemy fought well and to the end. I was told the last fighter had buried himself in the sand, Apache style, and made a last stand where the men with us today shot off his head. The two who vanished, apparently with wounds, set off by foot even deeper into the Dasht-e-Margo. Their chances of survival are shallow. The men we were with had chased them down. Tactically, today, they operated far better than what US Soldiers often witness during joint missions elsewhere. Tim Lynch is a retired Marine infantry officer. Tim was there when the “Thin Air” photograph was made, and he was the first to highlight out how well these men operated.

Excerpt: There's a new twist in the government's "gunwalking" scandal involving an even more dangerous weapon: grenades. "Gunwalking" subpoena for AG Holder imminent CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, who has reported on this story from the beginning, said on "The Early Show" that the investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)'s so-called "Fast and Furious" operation branches out to a case involving grenades. She says sources tell her a suspect was left to traffic and manufacture them for Mexican drug cartels. Police say Jean Baptiste Kingery, a U.S. citizen, was a veritable grenade machine. He's accused of smuggling parts for as many as 2,000 grenades into Mexico for killer drug cartels -- sometimes under the direct watch of U.S. law enforcement.

Excerpt: The puerile ideology of Occupy Wall Street is irrelevant to all of this. Goldman Sachs could be dissolved tomorrow and the wealth of the 1 percent confiscated, and it wouldn’t make college or health care cheaper, or create one new job. If the “revolution” yearned for by the protesters is insipid, there’s no doubt that the moment calls for bold economic reforms and a rethinking of health care and higher education. Pres. Barack Obama’s misbegotten contribution is a health-care law that won’t control costs and will insure more people only while making the current system more unsustainable. Republicans often don’t even bother to try to connect their program to the troubles of workers down the income scale.

Sex and drugs on tap, who says it's not a political partaaay? Occupy Wall Street protesters make love as well as class war

Excerpt: "Ten years ago, Steve Jobs was alive, Bob Hope was alive, Johnny Cash was alive. Now we're outta jobs, outta hope and outta cash." I heard that from a TSA agent in New York the other day, as he eyed me for explosives. We laughed, but there was a poignant edge. Part of the outpouring over Steve Jobs last week was that he was a huge symbol of what seems a lost world of American dynamism. The inventor in his garage changes the world. We'll not only make the new machine powerful and fast, we'll make it so beautiful it will make you cry. Like you're looking at the future, like you're looking at a baby in its crib. Johnny Cash: American soulfulness. Real American soul, not fake soul. "I'm stuck in Folsom prison . . ." Bob Hope's good cheer. He could poke the establishment because in those days it was strong enough to take it. People hoped to join it. Because it wasn't then a bad word. Anyway, the TSA man's joke was as good a summation of the current moment and the public mood as I've heard.

Excerpt: Will Durant's quote, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within” speaks directly to one Senator Bernie Sanders who thought he found a good scapegoat for the oil price increases of 2008. As reported in the October issue of Futures Magazine, “In August confidential information on crude oil futures trading positions from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) dating back to the summer of 2008 was leaked to The Wall Street Journal, causing the Futures Industry Association (FIA) to ask the CFTC to conduct an investigation...” The source of the leak was Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders was so proud of his leaking the data he announced it to the world in a Reuters story. In a June 16 email reviewed by Reuters, a senior policy adviser to Sanders discussed how his office received private data with the names and positions of traders and forwarded it exclusively to a Wall Street Journal reporter. Senator Sanders’ disclosure of confidential data said the FIA, “poses a serious threat to the confidence of market participants in the CFTC’s ability to protect proprietary information.” Senator Sanders leaked the information to show how he believed speculators drove up the price of oil in 2008. I will explain why Senator Sanders is a dangerous buffoon. I used to trade commodity futures at The Chicago Board of Trade as an independent floor trader and also as a house trader for a commodity brokerage firm.

And, of course, the military is being pushed to be Green by the administration. ~Bob. Excerpt: A major investor in Solyndra LLC was instrumental in helping the troubled solar-power firm compete for a potentially lucrative U.S. Navy deal, a previously unreported connection that will likely fuel controversy surrounding the company. Solyndra was promoted to the Navy by RockPort Capital, one of the firm's largest investors and board members, which has a seat on a Pentagon panel that helps the government find emerging technologies, recommended Solyndra to the military, along with four other companies. In the end, the negotiations for Solyndra's inclusion in a $1 million pilot program fell apart when the Navy learned about the company's pending bankruptcy filing.

Excerpt: Herman Cain's "9-9-9" plan might have been called the "Optimal Tax." The Republican presidential candidate's economic adviser, Rich Lowrie, thought the plan's broad sweep and ultra-low 9% rates made it an ideal tool to revamp the tax code and encourage growth. Herman Cain, right, talks in August with economic adviser Rich Lowrie, left, and an assistant in Spencer, Iowa. Mr. Cain liked the idea, but not the name Mr Lowrie came up with. "We can't call it that," Mr. Cain said during a cab ride through Nashville in July, according to Mr. Lowrie. Instead, the former pizza-chain executive, tapping his instinct for marketing, concluded: "We're just going to call it what it is: 9-9-9." ("What kind of nerd am I?" Mr. Lowrie says now.) It has proved to be a significant moment for Mr. Cain's presidential aspirations. The former Godfather's Pizza chief executive has emerged as a top-tier candidate for the GOP nomination, ranking first in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. And his plan is getting a significant share of the credit—and scrutiny—for its simplicity as well as its radical prescription for the tax code.

New Low: 32% Support Obama’s Decision To Take Military Action in Libya

Wait until the first SAM supplied by Obama’s democratic allies in Libya to al Qaeda takes down an airliner to see how low it will go. ~Bob. Excerpt: As fighting drags on in Libya, support for U.S. military action there and confidence that a change of government in the North African country will be good for the United States have fallen to new lows. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 32% of Likely U.S. Voters now agree with President Obama’s decision to take military action in Libya, down from 45% support in mid-March just after it began and 39% last month following premature news reports that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had been defeated.

Excerpt: If the Iranians needed a motive to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States they may have found it in a diplomatic cable leaked earlier this year by WikiLeaks. In the April 20, 2008 cable, Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir relayed to America’s No. 3 diplomat in Riyadh that the Saudi king wanted the U.S. to attack Iran’s nuclear program. “He told you to cut off the head of the snake,” the cable quotes al-Jubeir as saying. The Justice Department on Tuesday released a criminal complaint accusing an Iranian-American man of acting on behalf of Iran’s elite Quds Force to pay the Mexican drug gang Los Zetas to kill al-Jubeir. Iran has vehemently denied any involvement. (No doubt there were many other additional reasons and this was just icing on the cake. But, suppose the Iranians had simply declared war on Saudi Arabia and attacked them. I doubt we could’ve avoided involvement. This is why nations need secrets that stay secret. WikiLeaks could easily have started a war, possibly a world war; they aren’t heroes, they’re the worst sort of villain. They (WikiLeaks) did it for their own amusement and self-aggrandizement just like any restroom or water-cooler gossip. That’s why we should shoot them. Ron P. Yes, the WikiLeaks folks are on the “People I wish I could shoot” list. Seriously. But it’s a pretty long list. And growing. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: "We must make our election between economy and Liberty, or profusion and servitude." --Thomas Jefferson. By now, you're aware that the seeds of socialist dissent are being sown across our great nation, mostly within the fetid soil of urban centers, where cadres of activists coalesce under the aegis of "Occupy [fill in the blank]." It would be difficult to avoid the fanfare, given the amount of Leftmedia coverage (read: promotion) that these protests receive. According to my colleague Brent Bozell at Media Research Center, the protests were the subject of "more broadcast network stories in the first nine days than the Tea Party drew in the first nine months." Typical of the adoring coverage was this missive from ABC's Diane Sawyer, who claimed the occupiers "have spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but Antarctica." (Seriously, this drama queen actually said "more than a thousand countries.")

While the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize is generally politically motivated, many of the other Nobel awards go to those truly deserving in their fields of endeavor. That's why it's so refreshing that a recently named Nobel laureate warned two years ago about something we already knew: government stimulus doesn't work. New York University professor Thomas Sargent, one of the two winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics, foretold as early as 2009 that the approach of massive government spending presented "respectable reasons for doubting that fiscal stimulus packages promote prosperity" and, furthermore, that dismissing the arguments of skeptics is "not an accurate description of the full range of professional opinion." As time goes by, the crushing failure of the so-called stimulus package becomes more evident. For example, a $500 million program through the Employment and Training Administration that promised 125,000 jobs has spent $162.8 million so far, but it only employed 8,035 people. Of those, just 1,033 are still working after six months. Another example of the failure of Obama's policies is that incomes are declining at a faster rate during the so-called "recovery" than they did even during the recession that technically ended in June 2009. Politico reports, "During the recession, which economists say lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, the median annual household income fell by 3.2 percent, from $55,309 to $53,518, according to a report authored by two former U.S. Census Bureau officials. But in the post-recession period from June 2009 to June 2011, the figure fell by 6.7 percent, from $53,518 to $49,909. From December 2007 to June 2011, median annual household income fell by 9.8 percent." Not only was the stimulus "surprisingly naive" in the face of numerous experts advising a different approach; it has made the situation worse -- unless you revel in bad news for America. In that case, it's just what the doctor ordered.

Climate change book recalled by Battle Creek Area Math and Science Center

Excerpt: Thirty-five school districts are using the seventh-grade science kits this year, including Vicksburg, Otsego and Schoolcraft in the Kalamazoo area. As reported in the Kalamazoo Gazette Sunday, the Michigan Farm Bureau complained a few weeks ago that the 88-page book, "A Hot Planet needs Cool Kids," pushes an inaccurate take on modern agriculture, both by including erroneous information based on opinion rather than science and by failing to include information about ways that agricultural practices can help combat climate change. The book was written by Julie Hall, a resident of Bainbridge, Wash., a poet and cofounder of ProgressiveKids, “a planet-friendly” online company. It is not a textbook, but rather a children's book offering a left-wing perspective on global warming, along with suggestions for environmental activism. The book holds up Al Gore as an “eco-hero;” promotes organizations such as Greenpeace and Rainforest Alliance; urges children to persuade their parents to “Vote Green” and buy organic; cautions against new-home construction, the plastics industry and conventional agriculture, and notes “many people believe that it is best for the earth for families to have no more than one child.”

Never mind this. Quick, look over there at what Iran is doing! ~Bob. Excerpt: CNN's John King plays Holder's testimony to Congress on MAY 3, 2011, where he said he had only just recently heard about the Fast & Furious gunrunning program. "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks," Attorney General Eric Holder said. Then CNN compares Holder's testimony to what President Obama said in MARCH to CNN Espanol about the operation. "I heard on the news about this story that -- Fast and Furious, where allegedly guns were being run into Mexico, and ATF knew about it, but didn't apprehend those who had sent it." Transcript of the segment that aired on "John King USA" below:

Excerpt: What do you do if you can't run on your record -- on 9 percent unemployment, stagnant growth and ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see? How to run when you are asked whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago and you are compelled to answer no? Play the outsider. Declare yourself the underdog. Denounce Washington as if the electorate hasn't noticed that you've been in charge of it for nearly three years. But above all: Find villains. President Obama first tried finding excuses, blaming America's dismal condition on Japanese supply-chain interruptions, the Arab Spring, European debt and various acts of God. Didn't work. Sounds plaintive, defensive. Lacks fight, which is what Obama's base lusts for above all. Hence Obama's new strategy: Don't whine, blame. Attack. Indict. Accuse. Who? The rich -- and their Republican protectors -- for wrecking America.

Excerpt: Like an early-autumn frost, a blast of pessimism about the country’s direction has snapped a slow but steady warming trend toward President Obama in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey. Just 44 percent of those surveyed said they approved of Obama’s performance as president—his lowest rating in the 10 Heartland Monitor polls conducted since April 2009. Likewise, the share of adults disapproving of his performance also reached a high at 50 percent. Those results reversed modest but consistent gains for Obama since his previous low point in the survey in August 2010. In the most recent survey, conducted last May in the aftermath of the Osama bin Laden raid, Obama’s approval rating had edged up to 51 percent, with only 41 percent disapproving. Equally ominous for the president: 70 percent of those polled in the new survey said that the country was on the wrong track. That’s a sharp increase just since the most recent Heartland Monitor in May—and by far the highest level of dissatisfaction over the country’s direction recorded in any of the 10 polls. (The previous high was 62 percent in August 2010, just before the GOP landslide in the midterm elections that year.) Only one-fifth believed the country was moving in the right direction. (These numbers are more favorable to Obama than most of the other polls I’ve seen, but even compared to their own prior results, this has to be discouraging to Democrats. Maybe that’s why the Occupy Whatever movement sprang up? An excuse to postpone or suspend elections? I think a lot of people—and on both side of the political fence—might make VERY strong objections to such a postponement or suspension. Ron P.)

Excerpt: Many components make an effective military unit—training, confidence in one’s leaders, assurance of supply—but one factor stands above the rest. To quote from Steven Pinker’s new book (p. 355): “Studies of military psychology have discovered that soldiers fight above all out of loyalty to their platoonmates.” The logic of evolution, as well as our own instinct, tell us that this kind of loyalty comes most easily when the platoon are all kin or believe they are a “band of brothers.” In the modern world few of us belong to a kinship group big enough to supply a platoonful of young males, so the kinship needs to be manufactured. Fortunately this is something we can do by enlisting other kinds of affinity to the purpose. (Any soldier in almost any army could have told him that. No study needed. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: The second-richest American, a Nebraskan, says that the state should [soak the rich]—but he would, wouldn’t he? I have never warmed to Warren Buffett because behind that cuddly, avuncular manner is a shrewdie who always looks out for Number One. I know, I know, he’s leaving most of his moolah to charity, but when you have $39 billion and your family is set for life, what’s the use of trying to take it with you? My beef with Buffett is the business he’s in. He makes bets on other people’s accomplishments and risks. My old man built factories in Greece and in Africa, constructed and operated commercial vessels, erected hotels and started up insurance companies. He employed thousands, who in turn fed thousands, and so on. He never bought an already existing company or business. I don’t know how many employees Warren Buffett feeds, but I guess they are mostly a few hundred accountants and analysts at best.

Great line in the editorial of the Kentucky Statesmen recently.

Witnessing the Republicans and the Democrats bicker over the U.S. debt is like watching two drunks argue over a bar bill on the Titanic.”

I usually dread winter, but I look forward to watching them freeze and quit. Maybe Global Warming will save OWS? LOL. ~Bob. Excerpt: The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said the owners of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning. Supporters of the protesters had started streaming into the park in the morning darkness before the planned cleaning, forming a crowd of several hundred chanting people. "I'll believe it when we're able to stay here," said protester Peter Hogness, 56, a union employee from Brooklyn. "One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials." But protester Nick Gulotta, 23, was jubilant.

Excerpt: I must confess that I’ve been getting a kick out of Democrats trying to align themselves with the Occupy Wall Street mob. If ever a political stratagem was destined to blow up in their face, this is it. For folks who like to brag about their knowledge of history, it’s amazing that they’ve already forgotten what the Yuppies demonstrating in the streets of Chicago did to enhance Hubert Humphrey’s chances of defeating Richard Nixon in 1968. And at least those chowderheads could claim that they were demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Ask these baboons what they’re demonstrating against and, depending on whom you speak to, you might be told Goldman Sachs, banks in general, George Bush, the Tea Party, oil companies, the U.S. military, Fox News or Martians. As movements go, this one doesn’t even compare with the one I had this morning. With Election Day still about a year off, I am already getting into arguments with those conservatives who regard RINO as the dirtiest four-letter word in the English language. For some reason, they can’t accept that the majority of Americans are not as conservative as they are. I don’t know why that is. You would think the indisputable fact that very few actual conservatives win Republican primaries would convince them, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. No matter how many times I point out that in the Northeast, we’re fortunate that anyone with an (R) after his or her name can get elected, and that even though Collins, Snowe and Brown, aren’t exactly in the mold of John Kyl or Rush Limbaugh, it certainly beats having three Democrats helping Harry Reid maintain control of the Senate.

Excerpt: All states may have been created equal, but they were equal no longer. The states that had enjoyed the biggest boom were now facing the biggest busts. “How does the United States emerge from the credit crisis?” [Wall Street analyst Meredith] Whitney asked herself. “I was convinced—because the credit crisis had been so different from region to region—that it would emerge with new regional strengths and weaknesses. Companies are more likely to flourish in the stronger states; the individuals will go to where the jobs are. Ultimately, the people will follow the companies.” The country, she thought, might organize itself increasingly into zones of financial security and zones of financial crisis. And the more clearly people understood which zones were which, the more friction there would be between the two. (“Indiana is going to be like, ‘N.F.W. I’m bailing out New Jersey.’”) As more and more people grasped which places had serious financial problems and which did not, the problems would only increase. “Those who have money and can move do so,” Whitney wrote in her report to her Wall Street clients, “those without money and who cannot move do not, and ultimately rely more on state and local assistance. It becomes effectively a ‘tragedy of the commons.’” (Glug....glug....glug....Kate in LA.)

Excerpt: The Coast Guard in Boston confirmed that a woman in uniform was harassed and spat upon near Occupy Boston protesters. The woman was walking to the train and said protesters spit on her twice, called her foul names and even threw a water bottle at her. Now, the Coast Guard is warning all staff working on Atlantic Avenue to avoid those protesters while in uniform. (Before you get all huffy, you have to remember the Coast Guard only recruits millionaire Jewish Wall Street bankers as officers…. ~Bob.)

UPDATE ON YESTERDAY’S STORY:

Olive Garden Apologizes To Kiwanis Club For Not Allowing American Flag In Restaurant

Excerpt: Marti Warren, 80, wanted to bring an American flag into an Alabama Olive Garden for the Kiwanis Club award banquet last week. To her dismay, the restaurant refused to allow her to bring the flag inside. "I felt like I had been slapped in the face," Warren said. Olive Garden has since apologized. The company vice president contacted Warren on Wednesday and plans to visit the Oxford, Alabama Golden K Kiwanis Club. Olive Garden issued the following statement on its Facebook page, which, as of this writing, has sparked over 700 comments:

Excerpt: A memo issued earlier this year makes the case that the Energy Department was within its legal rights to restructure the $535 million Solyndra loan guarantee in February as the California solar company faced financial collapse. The memo became the focus of a hearing Friday of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative panel, when Democrats on the panel blasted Republicans for refusing to make the memo public. Lawmakers ultimately decided to enter the memo into the public record. The six-page memo, authored by Energy Department Loan Programs Office Chief Counsel Susan Richardson, says it was legal to restructure the loan in February so that investors who provided additional funding to Solyndra would be repaid before the federal government if the company folded. The memo is dated Feb. 15, 2011. (It would be legal for them to pee in an electrical socket, too. That wouldn’t make it smart. ~Bob.)

Justice Dept. Sets Up “Hotline” For Illegals to Complain About Alabama’s Immigration Law

Excerpt: The Obama Admin. shows once again who its REAL constituents are: ILLEGAL ALIENS. The Department of Justice, which is appealing Alabama’s outstanding new law, has set up a “hotline” number for illegals to report “civil rights” incidents under the new law. Opponents of Alabama’s new immigration law can now call the Justice Department directly to make complaints about the state’s effort to crack down on illegal immigrants. The Justice Department has set up a hotline and email for the public “to report potential civil rights concerns related to the impact of Alabama’s immigration law.” Clearly the DOJ is trying emotional manipulation to distract the 11th Circuit Appeals Court from the fact that AL is just enforcing existing Federal laws. Hopefully the justices will see through it, like Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn did. (Feel free to call. “Hey, man, I’m a legit Mexican drug dealer, snuck into Bama to do some business and these racist bastards won’t sell me no guns. Please have the ATF ship me some, as I gotta take out a few rivals.” ~Bob.)

excerpt: Do you think the young gent from Occupy Wall Street who defecated on the cop car got an A in "Dialectics of Hegemony"? The hordes of pathetic, dead-eyed pagans pustulating through our cities with Occupy Wall Street are the crowning achievement of America's academy. Thousands of vampires with PhDs labored for decades to perfect the art of sucking the souls from America's trusting young, and then hustling them into the slavery of terminal stupidity. How obedient these foul-smelling young wretches are! How touchingly eager they are to please! They sit on the ground in kindergarten formation, obligingly parroting whatever hellish nihilism oozes from the "microphone leader's" lips: "Everything is possible! You can have sex with animals!" Up go the "happy hands" in dutiful response. They so want to be good!

Excerpt: This is the new Islamic Britain as envisioned by the fire-breathing radical Anjem Choudary​ and Muslims Against Crusades. MAC’s latest initiative is called The Islamic Emirates Project, and its stated goal is “Breaking the Foundations of Western Civilisation”:

Excerpt: The Promethean rebels of Occupy Wall Street – who somehow think that pooping on police cars is truly “sticking it to the man” – are now marching on the individual homes of the super-wealthy. They’ve finally realized that sitting outside buildings on Wall Street is a worthless tactic, so they’re going uptown: to sit at the homes of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, David Koch (Koch Industries​), John Paulson (Paulson & Co.), Howard Milstein (New York Private Bank & Trust), and Rupert Murdoch​ (News Corp.). Why exactly aren’t they sitting outside the house of President Obama, who backstops all the malfeasance on Wall Street with our taxpayer dollars? The answer’s simple: they’re socialists, silly, and they know an ally when they see one. Watching losers complain about rich people is amusing enough. But adding to the spectacle are members of the entertainment industry, who are mobilizing behind the Occupy Wall Street crowd. It started with Roseanne Barr, who suggested that anyone with a net worth of more than $100 million who insisted on keeping his or her wealth should be beheaded. One wonders what she would say to Marcy Carsey, creator of Roseanne, who is worth approximately $600 million. And why exactly did Roseanne set the bar at $100 million? Maybe because it allows her—net worth reportedly approximately $80 million – to be grandmothered in?

Excerpt: Italian writer Antonio Scurati believes that the boom in Chinese investment in Europe and the influence of Chinese capitalism on the European economy are a threat to the freedom and sovereignty of Europeans and for their social and cultural model. I don't know what you think, but, as far as I'm concerned, I have no desire to die Chinese. Yet, the way things are going, it is highly probable that I will. (Yes, but a half hour later, you’ll be alive again. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Regardless, the lesson here is that the [New York City] and the landlord didn’t buy anything with their appeasement this morning; they just emboldened the OWS protestors to make a violent confrontation elsewhere. Maybe they could take a lesson or two from San Diego, which followed through on their deadline this morning.

Excerpt: We can expect further attacks on the infrastructure in Berlin, where violent elements in the leftist scene are becoming more and more radicalized. They are no longer discussing whether violence is justified, but how to cope with the threat posed to human life. In a massive overestimation of their own abilities, the group says this was “prevented to the best of our ability.” But as thorough as this email purports to be, its authors are clearly completely detached from the debates on the established political left. The socialist Left party, and still less the environmentalist Greens, mean nothing to these activists.Some leftists have recently condemned the ongoing spate of arson attacks on cars in Berlin, because they are not just targeting the luxury cars, but the Opels of hard-working Berliners. But clearly some elements of the scene is sliding inexorably towards terrorism. They want to make Germany a better place – just as the Baader-Meinhof gang did in the old days.

Excerpt: Having studied Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Gang for 15 years, I am well acquainted with the desire to compare every single bombing or terrorist act to those committed during Germany’s own “War on Terror” in the 1970s. It’s a somewhat natural instinct, but it inevitably is a non-illuminative task; the differences are often more profound than the similarities yet it become very easy to ignore those differences and focus exclusively on the parallels. So why did yesterday’s news hit me with such a wallop? Part of it is obviously personal. Exactly 40 years ago my father was the head of the US Army’s Berlin Bomb Disposal Unit. On many occasions he found himself in the identical situation of the bomb squad yesterday: walking down a Berlin public utility corridor, tools in hand, ready to disarm a device that would possibly kill him. A device left by leftist radicals determined to attack the state through terror. People often assume that I have some form of deep scarring or emotional baggage from my family experiences in Berlin in the early 1970s; after all, terrorists came close to killing my mother and father on separate occasions. But the truth is that I never really knew about any of this until I was in my 20s, and my dad was so detached from the whole experience when describing it that he could have just as easily been describing his first job as a paperboy.

Costs of the Occupiers: Protesters on Wall Street and elsewhere are acting out on your dime.

Excerpt: The trash generated by the “Occupy Wall Street” protests keeps piling up. So do the bills. Liberal media outlets claim the anarchic, anti-capitalist movement is more popular than the Tea Party. But wait until Americans across the country get a full picture of the costs of the aimless occupiers. In New York City, government officials estimate the month-long siege of Zuccotti Park has now imposed $3.2 million in overtime police costs on the public. On Thursday, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office pressured left-wing activists to vacate the park for cleaning, Occupy Wall Street urged sympathizers to flood the city’s customer-services lines: “Call 311 and tell Bloomberg not to evict us!”

Had the “Obama Supporter Exemption.” Why isn’t OWS camped on his lawn? ~Bob. Excerpt: That acquiring the firm's losses for his tax use was a key reason for Kaiser's purchase of Waterford was acknowledged when the firm "filed a plan of reorganization in a Texas bankruptcy court that stated that one of the principal motivations of the plan was to 'preserve the tax attributes of the debtor in order to allow the debtor to realize the benefits of the tax attributes,'" according to Allison. But in 1997, the IRS rejected the Waterford losses, Allison reports, saying "losses resulting from acquisitions made to evade or avoid income tax are prohibited." Kaiser challenged the IRS in court and ultimately settled with the tax agency for $3.7 million, or 15 cents on the dollar.

Note to dictators. Safest way to protect your self from US attack is to pose a threat to our interests. We’ll leave you alone then. I wonder if the ROE only allow them to shoot white millionaires, to be PC. ~Bob. Excerpt: Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA. The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries. The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying that “deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.” (Obama decides to teach Iran a lesson, orders troops to Africa. –Iowahawk.)

Gotta love unions looking out for the little guy. ~Bob. Excerpt: Murphy is quick to point to Reginald Weaver, former head of the country's largest teacher union, the National Education Association, who is collecting $242,000 annually based on his salary working with the union. Weaver earned just $60,000 as a middle school teacher in 1996 in Harvey, Ill.

They promised that CLASS would reduce the deficit by something like $70B. It was a selling point for ObamaCare. Turns out to be lie. But only one of many. ~Bob. Excerpt: The Obama administration is giving up on a controversial piece of the healthcare reform law. Officials from the Health and Human Services Department said Friday they will not keep trying to implement the CLASS program, which had long faced criticism from Republicans and skepticism within HHS. “We won’t be working further to implement the CLASS Act … We don’t see a path forward to be able to do that,” Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathy Greenlee told reporters.

Excerpt: The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – the six-nation group comprising Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – issued a statement calling the alleged plot a “flagrant and unacceptable violation of all laws, conventions and international norms, seriously harming the relations between the GCC member countries on the one hand and Iran on the other hand.” (…) Meeting in Cairo, Arab League ambassadors also condemned the alleged plot. “Such terrorist plots constitute a flagrant violation of the international laws and the conventions governing the state-to-state relations,” the 22-member organization said in a statement. “They also undermine the efforts aiming to establish peace and stability in the Middle East and other parts of the world, thus impacting negatively on the Arab-Iranian ties particularly the GCC-Iranian relations.” Syria, the Arab League member most closely allied to Iran, distanced itself from the statement. (The Saudis are neither powerful enough nor popular enough to impose this kind of unity on the Arab League. It has to reflect genuine displeasure with the Iranians. Ron P.)

Excerpt: Obama administration-approved black ops in Mexico more extensive than known On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed the Department of Justice. “Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged,” committee chairman Darrell E. Issa said. “The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It’s time we know the whole truth.” In fact, the committee’s legal assault on the stone wall surrounding the Justice Department’s collusion with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is only a waypoint in an epic, ongoing battle to uncover a scandal that involves nearly a dozen federal agencies.